Over Haulin' : Caterham Superlight R500 - Stage 1

Finally got a chance to start on some mod work. This is my official custom work for my blog. For this project, I will be working on a Matchbox Caterham Superlight R500. The goal is to make it look like the Caterham Super Seven JPE.

Photo courtesy of www.tamiya.com

Stage One

I've managed to get a hold of a neat little tool from a fellow collector. It's basically a drill bit with a screw driver like handle. It does the job okay but I'm still planning on getting myself a rotary tool. Stage one is for removing the rivets under the base of the car so that I can pry it open and disassemble the whole thing in preparation for paint stripping and the start of modifying the body and accessories.

The whole process is just a matter of removing just enough rivet so that you can detach the body from it's base. I have heard numerous accounts of fellow hobbyist over doing it and ending up with cars with holes on the roof.

As you can see in the next picture, the Caterham consists of 5 parts. The body, the chassis or base, the axle with the wheels, the cockpit and the front fenders. Now that we have the body, we can start paint stripping.

Unfortunately, I just found out that my paint stripper had dried up and I need to get a new one. So I guess that's it for now. I will update this page as soon as I can.

1 comment:

excellent paint stripper to use is the green acetone nail polish remover. the missus has a big bottle that i raid all the time. just dont use it on plastic parts, but it works like a charm on metal bodies. and less harmful than thinners and stripsols.